Archive for October, 2009

I was given permission by Amelia Withington to post this letter which was written to the Psychiatric Times as well as their subsequent response. The Letter to the Editor was written in response to an article that was published in the August 2009 issue of the Psychiatric Times. I decided not to include a link to that article because the pictures in the article are very disturbing and explicit (you can find it if you search, but be forewarned). Unfortunately, the Psychiatric Times did not publish the Letter to the Editor shown below, but instead, wrote a response to the letter which is also shown below as well.

In a bit of unrelated news here is a very positive comment I received from Amelia …

There was literally a "swarm" of interest in our Morgellons booth at the LDA/ ILADS meeting–I can’t tell you how many health care professionals would do a double-take and say, "that’s what my patients have been showing me/telling me about". We thought we had brought too many materials, but gave most of them away by the end of the first day.

All one has to do is pop over to LymeNet.org and do a search on “skin crawling” to know how wide spread this is in that community alone. Rest assured there are many laboring hard on our behalf, including those whose names you’ll find at the bottom of the Letter to the Editor shown below. I would like to say thank you to those who wrote this letter, we are grateful for your efforts.

Letter to the Editor of the Psychiatric Times

September 20, 2009

As a group of concerned physicians, nurses and scientists who work with patients who have chronic infections, including skin manifestations which are difficult to diagnose and treat, we were appalled by the verbiage which accompanied the photo essay on psychocutaneous disorders in the September 2009 issue.

First, from a psychiatric standpoint, it is inappropriate to use the term “psychological aberrations” instead of a specific psychiatric diagnosis or condition. Next, the allegation that the patients “drift” from one physician to another implies a judgment on the nature of the quest to find a health professional who is committed to finding relief for the patient’s suffering.

Such patients are further maligned for waiting until they present as “an emergency” (sic). If a patient is repeatedly turned away by one practitioner after another, it is understandable that they might be reluctant to seek help until the condition is perceived as an emergency.

An important concession in the “essay” reads “pharmacological intervention may benefit such patients”, as an appendage to the admonition that “traditional mental health interventions are almost always required if the aberrant behavior is to cease”.

The dermatologists who wrote the article go on to define factitial dermatitis as being self-induced, for secondary gain. Given that scratching oneself is often a response to itching, it should come as no surprise that lesions are most often seen in “easy to reach” areas. However, the fact that patients complain of accompanying pain and itching bears further investigation, particularly if such symptoms preceded the scratching behavior!

“Patients who self-inflict neurotic excoriations are more likely to admit to manipulation of the skin than those with factitial dermatitis”. The patient who caused the scrotal lesion in figure 6 “simply because it itched” most likely did not view his symptom as “simple” at all! He did not conceal that he scratched the area. The value judgment inherent in this caption projects scorn onto this patient’s presumed “weakness”, as well as onto the patients who used “caustic disinfectants” or who “created dramatic lesions with manicure instruments to gouge out the ‘chiggers’ she believed had infested her scalp for years”.

We contend that none of these patients set out to create “dramatic lesions” or to superimpose infections on areas of severe itching. We have seen many non-delusional patients who have been to many doctors, desperately trying to find someone who will believe in the suffering they endure. For most of these patients there is usually a reason for their itching, the nature of which is usually anything but “simple”.

Ruling out substance abuse and related skin sensations is important, as the article notes. It is extremely rare to see a patient with true delusions of parasitosis in the absence of a pre-existing psychiatric illness. It is also notable, as Dr. William T. Harvey has observed, that discussions of “delusions of parasitosis” have come into the medical literature primarily in the last 50 years. The reasons for this are likely multifactorial, and may have to do with ecological changes, exposure to toxins, antimicrobial resistance, and a host of other factors.

Above all, we implore medical professionals in all specialties to resist the urge to belittle the patient whose diagnosis and treatment is not straightforward. We doubt very much that any of these patients intentionally set out to torture themselves in order to gain satisfaction from baffling doctors. What we saw in the photos as well as the accompanying commentary are nine patients with a long history of suffering, who still failed to find any understanding or relief after seeking medical attention.

Response to the Letter to the Edtior

To The Editor:

We appreciate the concerns expressed by Dr. Withington, et al, regarding our recent photo essay. The co-signatory healthcare providers and researchers are to be commended for their dedication to and efforts on behalf those who suffer from disorders which are difficult to diagnose and/or treat. That said, and with all due respect, we feel that the correspondents completely over-read, grossly misinterpreted and shockingly over-analyzed our presentation. Moreover, for individuals allegedly concerned about the “scorn” heaped upon patients, the letter-writers certainly approached this subject with what might well be interpreted as a total lack of respect and professional decorum. One might even say scornful.

Let us clarify a few points. It is appropriate for dermatologists to say that “psychological aberrations” are present and allow those more qualified to determine the nature of same. Conversely, it might be appropriate for mental health providers to allow those who have specialized training and expertise in disorders affecting the skin, hair and nails to determine an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan for those problems properly within their purview.

Secondly, the description of common patient characteristics associated with factitious skin disease stand as a statement of fact devoid of the judgmental implications that the letter writers ascribe. Including those adjectives helps alert healthcare providers who may not be attuned to these characteristics.

Unfamiliarity with skin disease is patently obvious when the authors take issue with our statements regarding excoriations being located in “areas easy to reach.” The point of that statement was this: traditional skin diseases (psoriasis, for example) do not spare regions of the anatomy beyond the easy reach of fingernails, whereas self-inflicted lesions, by their nature, often do. That is not a commentary about the importance of whatever pathology caused the patient to seek medical attention. It does, however, help completely or partially eliminate a myriad of diseases from the differential diagnosis.

The authors take offense at several of our patient descriptions. No value judgment, especially not “projected scorn” was intended when we described the massively destructive scalp lesion resulting from self-gouging with manicure instruments as being dramatic! Isn’t it dramatic? Do the authors use a different dictionary than the rest of the universe? Why was it “scornful” to explain how and why the lesion came to pass? The authors also imply that the diagnosis of “delusions of parasitosis” is somehow either always inadequate or inaccurate. We agree: that particular diagnosis doesn’t tell the whole story; it does, however, imply that specific, universally recognized organic skin diseases (again: think of psoriasis) are not etiologic, and that proper referral to a qualified mental health professional (a major point of our essay, seemingly missed by the letter writers) might well in order after non-cutaneous pathology has been diligently but unsuccessfully sought.

Lastly, for the authors of this letter to suggest that we belittle patients with ailments that are not straightforward is demeaning and insulting. We neither said nor implied that patients consciously set out to “torture themselves” in order to “baffle doctors.” What we did say, and would reiterate unapologetically: there are unusual patterns of skin lesions, amply illustrated in this essay, which represent important problems that deserve suitable investigation and sound intervention based upon reproducible and widely accepted scientific principles. That often, if not invariably, includes mental health assessment in addition to any skin-directed therapy.

Ted Rosen, MD Professor of Dermatology Baylor College of Medicine (on behalf of all co-authors)

I find it telling that the Psychiatric Times refused to even publish the Letter to the Editor. I also believe this comment taken from Ted Rosen’s response to be far from representative of our treatment.

We agree: that particular diagnosis doesn’t tell the whole story; it does, however, imply that specific, universally recognized organic skin diseases (again: think of psoriasis) are not etiologic, and that properreferral to a qualified mental health professional (a major point of our essay, seemingly missed by the letter writers) might well in order after non-cutaneous pathology has been diligently but unsuccessfully sought.

I’m going to hold my tongue on that remark above.

Please refrain from going to their site and writing a nasty response. That will get us nowhere. The tide is turning in this debate (much more on this later), however it takes time. If I were to list the ailments that at one point were thought to be merely in a persons head you’d be shocked.

I think you are going to find the next several months here on the Mundane Approach very fascinating as we are going to be taking on this very notion of DOP.

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This might seem like a strange blog post but I need to know if the readers of this blog would like to see this work continue. Readership is going up and up (it will be at almost 10,000 hits this month in October) but so few people post that I am not sure if folks are finding this useful.

If you want to see the “Mundane Approach” continue please respond to this post, even if you have never replied before just post and let me know that you do. I’m at a cross roads and need to know that this blog is helpful to you and I (we) are not just barking into the wind.

Please, if you read this blog just post, yes, or I’m here, or something to let me know you find this valuable.

Here is an interesting post I read on LymeBusters. I am merely sharing this, not saying it’s true, if this kind of stuff causes you stress don’t read it, honestly. I’m intrigued by their work and watching this theory closely …

Hi (name removed), I look forward to you coming to be with us in Germany, we will get you out of your environment into one that doesn’t have all this GM stuff going on, the air and water is fairly clean as there is no industry there… pray to God that we can complete our mission.

It’s a shame that we have to worry about everything we eat and drink, and even the wind blowing and what it brings… what kind of a life is this?

All we want is some peace of mind, to be around people that are good to us, in a loving environment… simple means… Morgellons has changed me and my priorities.

The size of these critters varies, they can be very, very small… possibly even start out as nano in size. When the farmer orders the baculovirus from the baculovirus store, it probably comes in a powder form? Each speck of the powder is capable of producing an insect. The size varies depending on how long they are under our skin and allowed to grow. They go through 4 instars or stages of where they come out of their ‘shells’, produce another shell and come out of it until they reach adulthood, I’m sure that naturally, with each instar they get larger each time.

I have GM FG, Jeany has it, and you have them… I don’t know who all else, possibly Toni and Jo… have been able to identify what is happening?

What’s tricky is that they are in a constant morphing state, how long it takes one to morph from powder to a real live critter… ?? I know its development depends somehow on how much moisture and at what temperature they are. If they have a greenhouse effect, their stages are sped up, I have witnessed this in my Petri Dishes. All I have to do is put the Petri Dishes inside a box (or a plastic baggie) and place the box in the sun… and pow!… growth happens quickly. In the cooler winter/spring months with the Dishes out in the house at 70+ degree temperatures, they make little progress.

I witnessed them in real life, when they are threatened or sense something is wrong, they gather together and stack themselves in a row on top of each other… like sardines in a can. And, as they are stacking, they are transforming from live back into a brown shell form, looked like sesame seeds, and within a few minutes they will go back into carbon. (Jeany was visiting then and saw them do this, too, she can verify this statement.)

Here’s a photo of fungus gnat larvae transitioning from real life back into what I call a ‘sesame seed’ state… a protective shell around them. This happened when their environment suddenly changed to direct sunlight, moisture levels changing, and humans close by!! Are they innately afraid of humans? This is two of them ‘stacked’ on top of each other:

What does this have to do with us? I think they operate under our skin the same way they do in nature. I had an experience one time in which I put some kind of oil or cream on my face… I was taking some heavy anti-parasiticals and Silver at this time, it felt like they all got up and moved at the same time from my face down to my neck! Quorum sensing… one is the whistle blower and they all do what he says… lol. It was frightening when it happened… totally out of line with is known to be reality and quite shaking. How often are they capable of getting to this point inside our bodies, once a year, twice a year… not at all for some?

Of course, this is nothing that might happen to any of us, even if we repeated what I did – took Silver and anti-parasiticals and put creams on our face. The larvae have to be in this coming to life stage to respond. That is another thing that makes our conversations confusing to each other, unless we have happened to experiment at a time when they are in this stage… we might not know that they are capable of pack movement under our skin? Yes, there is some sort of electrical component to them, look at this video on this larvae coming out of and eating its shell/pupae, you will see around the 7:14 mark where it gets angry at being hung in the shell? and sparks actually start coming out of its rear end.

To give you an idea of the size of this one at 100x, it is inside a bead of water that accumulated on the lid of the Petri Dish… this bead of water was the size of 3 or 4 mm, an inch is 25.4 mm, so that’s about 1/8 inch. The larvae can get to be quite large before adulthood, like the size of the white part of a woman’s pinky fingernail with short-cut nails.

When these come out of our skin, they can have many consistencies depending on where they are in their development. The larvae can be clear, goo like, or whiteish, or light yellow, (probably other colors too) and then change back in to dark colors like black or brown. Larvae are usually c-shaped or the shape of the ends of our fingernails, the white part with short-cut nails.

Are there other ‘critters’ involved inside this baculoviral mix – you bet there are. When they first started messing with this creation – they put scorpion and spider DNA in there to help make the insects die quicker or something like that, I forgot, but these other insect DNA’s are in the mix too… we might wonder that if some of us have a particular symptom, like you do with your oozing clear goo from your hands and feet that most of us don’t seem to have such an obvious symptom as this, that you got a different baculoviral batch than the rest of us did?

We have identified the main sphere that we’re seeing in my samples and yours is called the Autographia California nuclear polyheadron virus or (ACNPV), this much we know is appearing to be true. The Autographia California is a moth… this is supposedly what the shell of this sphere is made of… what I can’t decide and we’re looking at is… are all of these in my photos the same sphere doing different things, going through different stages or are there several spheres involved, this is where we need help. I need to get busy and Frito is trying to help… let me move over there today.

What I’m seeing is that these spheres can be generic or just ‘blanks’ made out of hydro-gel or similar material and they can put anything inside them they want to… I’m wondering if the shells of these spheres melting under our skin when we put something on our skin to cause them to do this, is causing a clear goo to appear? What else in the mix creates a clear goo?… the insides of the larvae themselves appear to be a clear goo.

This brings me to mind of the people that are mashing their skin to extract what is underneath, which is natural when this is happening, and getting a clear liquid to come out of our lesions – I don’t think this is good. We know that removing a fly larvae under the skin has to be done with it whole in order to not contaminate the surrounding skin. That they can be coaxed out and that we need to use more coaxing methods such as what Jo has recommended.

This brings us to the nematode involvement, we haven’t seen many nematodes in our samples, not to say they aren’t there… but, if the purpose of the fungus involved is to trap and kill the nematodes and with all of the fungal involvement… the fungus should be taking care of this problem? That people are reporting a nematode under their skins… these nematodes are microscopic and should never get to any size that we would be aware of as a visual – that more than likely what they are feeling and seeing is a larvae and not a nematode, that larvae appear nematode-like in their stages.

Not to negate nematode involvement, there has been reports by people saying they have seen earthworm-like worms in their stools… which is different than what I was talking about. I’m talking about the nematodes that are produced from a powder or that are programmed to be inside of the baculoviral larvae.

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I want to use this blog post to make a statement. I am not a doctor nor a nutritional expert. I write this blog as a volunteer effort to share what worked for me. Whether you follow any advice on this blog is up to you and you should always work with your doctor. Also, no one should ever “self treat” children or assume what they have is Morgellons. Your children should only be treated by a doctor.

I will tell you that I got better when I stopped doing all the crap and focused on things that my body needed, healthy normal things including good food, balanced meals, more sleep, and exercise. I think a large amount of the suffering by Morgellons patients is initially self inflicted by all the toxins they (we) applied to ourselves when we first realized we had this. Some of them maybe even from prescription creams for scabies and such.

I’ve said this before, every time I stopped taking junk I got better. Eat healthy, get outside, go have fun, and stop surfing scary forums. Finally, I will say this, cleaning never helped me get better, if you are cleaning with all kinds of products they are probably toxic in some way which isn’t good for you.

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This was sent in by one of our readers, “Herehoping”, at my request. You have probably seen her comments on some of the posts around here. She was also on Mel’s conference call. So now you know another person who found her way out of this mess besides me. Here is her story.

I am forty-six years old. By 1989 I had given birth to three children while maintaining a poor nutritional diet most of my adult life.

Shortly after the birth of my second child I began to experience chronic joint pain. After several specialist referrals I was left with an answer of autoimmune disorder.

Unable to get a more specific diagnosis the doctors chalked it up to fibromyalgia.

For the next twenty years I would have flare ups of painful joints, chronic eyeritis, and fatigue.

My battle with Morgellons began in May 2009. I was working on a project that involved complete physical exertion and heavy exposure to pathogens.

My daily diet consisted of a candy bar (or something equivalent) and a six-pack of diet coke. I was sleeping three or four hours a night. Whatever Morgellons is, I left a door wide open for it. By July 2009 ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!! I felt as if poison ran thru my veins and scales were falling from my eye lashes.

My symptoms included:

Extreme joint pain

Fatigue

Deteriorating vision

Crawling sensations

Black specs

Lesions

Fibers

Hands swollen/numb

Stinging/biting sensations

My dogs exhibited Morgellons symptoms shortly after mine began. They are now 99.9% symptom free. I de-worm them twice a month (Fenbendazole) and add a supplement (Dinovite recommended on Mr Common Sense blog) to their diet.

August 2009 I changed my diet to organic healthy food three to five times a day. I began the “original protocol” of vitamins and supplements posted by Mr Common Sense on his blog, drinking ANU water (one ounce twice a day), and using ESP New Hope II.

My dogs and I are 99.9% symptom free. I have never felt or looked better in my entire life.

Thank you Mr Common Sense for your blog and all the information you have supplied for many others and me. Thank you Trisha for your wonderful herbal products.

Thank you Jesus for being “Thee Way, The Truth, and The Life”

The seventh revelation is about frequent feelings of joy and sorrow; and how it is expedient for man sometimes to be left with out comfort, even when he has not sinned.

“And God’s next showing was a supreme spiritual pleasure in my soul. I was filled with eternal certainty, strongly sustained, and without any tormenting fear. This feeling was so joyful and so inward that I felt completely peaceful and at rest as though there were nothing on earth that could hurt me. This only lasted for a while, and then my feeling was reversed and I was left to myself, oppressed, weary of my life, and so disgusted with myself that I could hardly bear to live.

There was no comfort or ease for me but faith, hope, and love, and these I had in reality, but could not feel them in my heart. And immediately after this, our blessed Lord again gave me the spiritual rest and comfort, with certainty and pleasure so joyful and so powerful that no fear, no sorrow, no bodily pain that one might suffer could have distressed me. And then the sorrow was revealed to my consciousness again, first one, then the other, several times, I suppose about twenty times. And in the moments of joy I might have said with Saint Paul ‘Nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ.’ And in the same moments of sorrow I might have said with Peter ‘Lord save me, I perish.’

This vision was shown to me, as I understand it, because it is helpful for some souls to have such experiences, sometimes to be strengthened, sometimes to falter and be left by themselves. God wishes us to know that he safely protects us in both sorrow and joy equally. And to benefit his soul, a man is sometimes left to himself, though not always because of sin; for this time the changes were so sudden that I could not deserve by sinning to be left alone. Neither did I deserve the feeling of bliss. But our Lord gives generously when he so wishes and sometimes allows us sorrow; and both come from the same love.

So it is God’s will that we should hold on to gladness with all our might, for bliss lasts eternally, and pain passes and shall vanish completely for those that are saved. And therefore it is not God’s will that we shall be guided by feelings of pain, grieving and mourning over them, but should quickly pass beyond them and remain in eternal joy.”

Julian Of Norwich Revelations of Divine Love The long text

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I am not a Doctor or a Nutritional Expert. I recommend all people check with their doctor before taking any supplements or vitamins. I am only a volunteer. I claim no cure either. No Factions. No Conspiracies. All are welcome if they are civil. I'm not interested in blame, only living a life symptom free.

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